Open AccessThe Rhetoric of Healthcare Inequality in Capitalist Classed Societies: Blomkamp’s and Romanek’s Dystopian Visions
Author(s) -
Joanna Gacka
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
res rhetorica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.101
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 2392-3113
DOI - 10.29107/rr2018.1.4
Subject(s) - dystopia , rhetoric , vision , rhetorical question , health care , sociology , democracy , narrative , political economy , political science , environmental ethics , gender studies , politics , law , philosophy , linguistics , anthropology
The future of democratic societies has been widely debated among futurologists, including the possible ways medicine could advance, changing the lives of individuals and communities. Yet, what seems a reasonable question to ask is – how the unequal access to healthcare might perpetuate social and economic divisions and turn democracy into tyranny. This paper advances a rhetorical analysis of the reciprocal relations between healthcare and the classed capitalist system as portrayed in two dystopian pictures: Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go (2010) and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (2013). The realities depicted in these movies, as well as their narratives, vary considerably; however, they both present medical advancements as means of and reasons for maintaining or perpetuating social inequality. The two dystopias also warn us of some possible dangers posed by the incompatibility of the capitalist mindset with morality and ethics, presenting corruption in healthcare systems as a result of the class conflict.